EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in a six-part series exploring the many facets of the Montgomery County domestic violence agency Laurel House and the services it provides to the community.

“Close your eyes for a moment,” says Gary Gregory, his voice trembling as he paces back and forth in front of several hundred people inside the Green Valley Country Club.

It’s the evening of April 20, and all are gathered for the Annual Gala benefit event thrown by Laurel House — the Montgomery County agency that supports victims of domestic violence.

Gregory’s only a couple of minutes into a talk about his sister, Ellen Gregory Robb, when he makes the request of the audience, but already, few eyes are dry — most are moved to tears by Gregory’s difficulty holding back his own, as well as the anticipation of what virtually everyone in the room knows is to come.

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“Imagine the enthusiasm that you would have as you would drive up to that house, imagine you’re going to get a loved one, they’re going to begin a new life, ” he continues, struggling to maintain his composure. “And then you drive up and what do you see? You see police tape. You pull over. You jump out. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m Gary Gregory, the brother of the woman who lives there.’ He checks on the radio. ‘Your sister is dead.’ And then they put a body in the ambulance and away she went.”

Gregory exhales deeply. The scene he’s creating in the mind’s eye is Robb’s murder in her Upper Merion home in December of 2006 — beaten to death so savagely with a metal bar that responding officers initially believed she had been shot in the face with a shotgun.

Her husband, Rafael Robb — then a University of Pennsylvania economics professor — was arrested the next month and charged with her murder. Authorities said he tried to cover up the killing by making it look as if there had been a burglary. He was convicted of the crime in 2007 after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and received a five- to 10-year prison sentence.

“My sister, while wrapping Christmas presents, had been bludgeoned beyond recognition by a man she used to love,” Gregory says, explaining that Robb had suffered emotional and physical abuse for most of her 16-year marriage and had told her husband, as well as family and friends, that she was planning to leave and seek a divorce.

“That’s the nightmare of domestic violence,” Gregory says.

But that nightmare, never far from Robb’s family’s mind throughout the past six-and-a-half years, resurfaced in a different form at the beginning of this year when Gregory received a letter that Rafael Robb had been granted parole and was slated to be released in late January.

Desperate, Gregory called Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman for advice on trying to get the decision reversed. “‘Gary, it’s a long shot; I don’t know if you can do it. I’ve never seen it overturned, but if it’s gonna make you feel better, if it makes you feel like you’ve done all you can do, go for it,’” Gregory says Ferman told him, giving him her blessing to go to the media to raise awareness of the situation.

The media jumped on the Robb family’s message: “Letting a killer go for what was deemed the most horrific and heinous and brutal killing in the history of Montgomery County in the past half-century, he shouldn’t be set free after five years,” as Gregory puts it.

That’s when state Rep. Mike Vereb (R-150th District) jumped in.

‘“I contacted Risa and said, ‘My God, what is this?’ and she said, ‘It’s a travesty and we’ve done everything we possibly can,’” Vereb says.

That same day, Vereb ran into Gov. Tom Corbett at an event in Philadelphia and explained the situation. “I said, ‘There’s no way this parole board should have done this and we have to stop the release of Rafael Robb.’”

“The governor said, ‘Look, the (parole board) chairman (Michael Potteiger) was appointed by me and I will ask the chairman to contact the people involved in the case and reach out to you,” Vereb recalls.

Vereb and Robb’s family members, including Gregory, met with Potteiger and brought with them a letter from retired Judge Paul Tressler, who presided over Rafael Robb’s trial, strenuously objecting to the parole decision.

Still, the family was permitted to discuss only parole process with Potteiger — state law currently dictates that crime victims (or their representatives) cannot directly testify before the parole board tasked with making parole decisions. They can only do so via written, electronic or video testimony or by direct testimony to a separate parole hearing examiner.

And yet, within two days of that meeting, Rafael Robb’s parole was revoked. He won’t be eligible for parole again until September of 2014. “None of this happens unless we have a governor willing to say, ‘This doesn’t seem right,’” says Vereb, “and the lesson here is that we’ve got to change the system.”

“We’re going to fight again next year and every time we have to, to keep him in prison,” says Gregory. “Hopefully they can do something in Harrisburg to make that fight a little easier.”

“There are some good laws in Pennsylvania, and nationally, relating to domestic abuse,” says Beth Sturman, executive director of Laurel House.

She points to the reauthorization earlier this year of the federal Violence Against Women Act (originally enacted in 1994), which commits hundreds of millions of dollars annually to law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute domestic violence crimes and to various state and local agencies to provide comprehensive support for victims.

“But there are still some things that need to be done on the state level,” says Sturman.

Laurel House and its Harrisburg-based “parent agency,” the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence — a network of battered women’s support organizations that first coalesced in the mid-1970s around grassroots work to help pass the state’s landmark Protection from Abuse Act of 1976 — ardently support a number of state legislative efforts aimed at supporting victims of domestic violence and holding their abusers more accountable for their crimes.

“Our work in ending violence against women and their children remains a grassroots effort where local communities really formulate what the public policy should be and advocate for its passage with our elected officials,” says Peg Dierkers, PCADV’s executive director.

Vereb’s recently introduced House Bill 492 — inspired by the Robb case — is one such policy change advocates are getting behind enthusiastically.

Co-sponsored by dozens of state legislators from both sides of the aisle — and many from Montgomery County, including staunch Laurel House supporters Rep. Todd Stephens (R-151st District), Matthew Bradford (D-70th District) and Marcy Toepel (R-147th District) — Vereb’s bill would modify the language of the Pennsylvania Crime Victims Act of 1998 to allow victims, or the victim’s representative (in cases where the victim is deceased) to appear in person and provide testimony before the parole board prior to parole release decisions.

Introduced in March, HB 492 unanimously passed in the House and currently sits in the Senate Appropriations Committee — Vereb expects it will go to Corbett’s desk next month to be signed into law.

“The day this governor signs this bill, it will change the playing field for our victims,” says Vereb, who says that victims of domestic violence would be able to testify before the parole board “without defense attorneys and criminals present and none of their testimony is public information.”

“During sentencing, both the victims and the defendants have an opportunity to present testimony in court, so how come only the perpetrator has rights once they’re in jail?” says Vereb. “This lets the victims talk to the parole board and then the parole board talks to the criminal. It cannot be any fairer than that.”

There have been a handful of other domestic violence-related bills introduced during the current legislative session.

One of them — House Bill 27, introduced by Rep. Ron Marsico (R-105th District) — would change the Pennsylvania criminal code to enhance the grading the crime of harassment by one degree when committed by someone in violation of a Protection from Abuse order (otherwise known as a “restraining order”).

That means that in some cases what would normally be a summary offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 90 days in prison, could get bumped up to a misdemeanor that could mean up to a year behind bars.

Marsico’s bill currently sits in the House Judiciary Committee, with no vote scheduled.

There are also bills dealing with funding: Toepel’s House Bill 545, which currently sits in the House Gaming Oversight Committee, would distribute 12.5 percent of the estimated $1.2 million annually that is Montgomery County’s share of gaming revenue generated by the new Valley Forge Casino Resort to Laurel House.

That would amount to approximately $150,000 a year in the agency’s coffers—significantly enhancing its overall budget, which is $1.7 million for the fiscal year 2012-2013. That budget, says Sturman, “isn’t a lot of money” given the myriad services and programs Laurel House provides.

Meanwhile, Bradford’s House Bill 1260 would increase from $10 to $15 the fine currently imposed against those who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes and/or rape — money that goes to victim services agencies like Laurel House.

“With tight budgets over the last five years or so, one of the things we look to do is increase some of the court fines and target that money for organizations that need it,” says Bradford. “This is a way, frankly, to come up with revenue in a fairly innocuous way, and hopefully it will get broad support,” he says of the bill, which has been in the House Judiciary Committee since the end of April.

And then there’s the somewhat more contentious Senate Bill 486 — known alternately as “Robin’s Law,” named in honor of Robin Shaffer, a Quakertown woman murdered by her estranged husband in 2004 — introduced by Sen. Lisa Boscola (D-18th District). It would create a Megan’s Law-style statewide registry, maintained by the Pennsylvania State Police, of those convicted of domestic violence-related crimes; offenders would be kept on the registry for 10 years, and failure to register or to provide a change of address would be a third-degree felony.

Though a similar law already exists in other states, Boscola has been trying to get “Robin’s Law” legislation passed in Pennsylvania for several years but has so far been stymied. Pushback has come over privacy issues, as well as concerns that inclusion on such a registry could provoke retribution against a victim by their abuser, or lull people into a false sense of security if someone’s name is not on it, since many abusers are never actually convicted of their crimes.

“To be honest, our membership comes down on both sides of that issue,” says Dierkers.

Stephens says that he finds the idea of a registry intriguing. “I’ve heard from women who end up dating someone and they’re abused and they find out later that the last person this guy dated was abused, so why should they have to learn the hard way?” he says. “There’s been a lot of discussions about things along those lines, and I’ll take a look at and consider anything that will protect victims of domestic violence.”

A former Montgomery County prosecutor who put away child abusers and rapists and dealt with his share of domestic abuse situations, Stephens is a zealous supporter of Laurel House and has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of domestic violence-related bills, including Vereb’s parole bill and Bradford’s funding bill.

He was also the one who suggested Laurel House as one of the prime beneficiaries of Toepel’s casino revenue bill, and during his time in Harrisburg he’s fought against efforts to cut funding for state domestic violence programs, sometimes running afoul of leadership in his own party.

“My first budget in 2011, I had only been in office for six months and when the leaders put out the budget proposal they sent it out with an admonishment, ‘We would like for this not to be amended,’” Stephens recalls. “And when I opened it up and saw there was a proposal to reduce funding for domestic violence, what did I do? I filed an amendment.”

“It didn’t go over so well,” he laughs, “But I will say this — I worked with our leaders and in the end, none of that funding was cut.”

Stephens says he’s looking into several issues surrounding domestic violence, with an eye toward possible future legislation or at least education. One, he says, is the relationship between domestic violence and gun violence — according to the PCADV, between 2000 and 2012, 59 percent of the state’s 1,320 domestic violence fatalities were the result of firearms.

“When you add a firearm to a domestic violence situation it’s throwing a match on a powder keg,” he says. “Our PFA law permits the seizure of firearms, although you’ve gotta make sure people are afforded due process. But it all comes down to educating the judges (who are ruling on PFA orders) about the seriousness of a gun in the hands of someone who commits domestic violence.”

“You may have a situation where somebody is abusive with their hands and a judge may say, ‘Well I don’t see any reason to take this person’s gun because they’ve never threatened to use the gun,’” Stephens continues. “Well, as a lot of folks in the domestic violence field know, domestic violence is very often an escalating thing, so just because you didn’t use a gun before doesn’t mean you’re not going to use one if it’s available to you.”

Stephens says he also recently met with the Pennsylvania State Police about ensuring that PFA orders barring individuals from purchasing or possessing firearms are properly submitted to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. “They currently are, but there’s sometimes problems with the identifying information for the defendant, and if you don’t have that, then it’s really worthless,” he says.

Additionally, he intends to investigate ways PFA orders can be strengthened — perhaps by increasing the penalties for violating a PFA, as domestic violence advocates from Laurel House and others have suggested.

Currently, the law provides only for an indirect criminal contempt complaint for someone who violates a PFA — that person can be fined up to $1,000 and/or sentenced to up to six months in jail. In some states, violating a PFA can result in a felony charge.

“There are different degrees of PFA violations and we might want to give the judges some latitude,” says Stephens. “All violations are serious, but those that are particularly egregious could be treated more severely, and that’s something I’ll definitely look into.”

“I’ve been through PFAs that have been violated before, and I can count with very few fingers how many people who violated a PFA actually went to jail,” says Vereb, a former cop who Sturman also hails as a fervent supporter of Laurel House and domestic violence issues. Vereb has worked closely with Stephens on several domestic violence-related bills, and says he’s for overhauling the PFA system.

“We need to put teeth in these orders to really protect people in the cases that become dangerous,” he says. “I happen to feel that when a permanent PFA is granted by the court, there is no reason why a person with a PFA against them should possess firearms.”

“I think that any person who violates a PFA ought to be sent directly to incarceration pending charges— we have to figure out how to remove people from the streets,” Vereb continues.

“I’m also a firm believer that once a permanent PFA has been granted, it should be published somewhere. Yes, we have to look at the rights of everyone involved. But we have to craft something that fixes the system, because I can tell you that the disbelief at the failure of our PFA system seems to be recurring and we need to see what we can do,” he says.

For the most part, say several legislators, domestic violence initiatives get strong support in Harrisburg from both parties.

Further evidence of that bipartisan spirit can be seen in the effort on both sides to change a recently modified Norristown Nuisance Ordinance (Ordinance No. 12-15) that imposes fines on landlords if police respond to three disorderly behavior calls in connection with one of their tenants in four months.

Last month, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Norristown woman who said she was a victim of repeated domestic violence at the hands of her abusive ex-boyfriend, but after calling the police several times to get protection from him was threatened with eviction under the ordinance. According to the lawsuit, the woman then decided not to report future assaults — including one in which her abuser attacked her with a brick and another in which he stabbed her in the neck with a broken glass ashtray, resulting in her being airlifted to the hospital — out of fear of being kicked out of her home.

Stephens and Vereb, along with Ferman and representatives from Laurel House, held a joint press conference in Norristown at the end of April denouncing the ordinance as it currently stands. Both legislators have pledged to work together on a bill that would prohibit municipalities from enforcing such ordinances that would doubly victimize domestic violence victims or dissuade them from reporting such assaults.

“When we do things, we need to look at it from the victim’s perspective, and this ordinance deters people from dialing 911 when they need to,” says Vereb, who along with Stephens, intends to bring forth a bill that would insert specific language into the ordinance that says the law doesn’t apply to victims of domestic violence.

Bradford, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee with Stephens, says he would support such a bill. “I think an explicit exception would be fine. These ordinances are in quite a few municipalities and they come out of concerns communities have about bad things going on at certain properties, but you don’t want victims to get caught in the crossfire,” he says.

In the bigger picture, says Bradford, “I’ve supported some of his (Stephens’) legislation in the past and as a former assistant district attorney these are issues he’s aware of, as well as Mike (Vereb), being a former police officer. I’m a Democrat and they unfortunately are not, but we’ve worked together on things that have had unanimity of support, and domestic violence issues are great examples of times we can all work together.”

“I stand with every member of the Montgomery County delegation, Republican and Democrat, who I truly think feel the same about this issue,” says Vereb. “I can tell you that Republican and Democrat, we all really want to help out the Laurel Houses of the world.”

Yet, as Dierkers points out, history shows that legislation sometimes gets held up on partisan lines when well-intentioned bills touch on hot-button issues — such as guns. The Protection from Abuse Act, for example, allows those who have had their firearms taken away from them as part of a PFA order to give them to a third party for safekeeping, rather than relinquish them to law enforcement — a compromise Dierkers says was negotiated with pro-gun legislators backed by the National Rifle Association.

“That third party could be their brother or their friend, so sometimes an abuser can gain access to them even when they’re not supposed to have them,” says Dierkers. “And what we see then is victims being killed. So sometimes the solutions are complex and in order to get most of the solution passed we make compromises because pieces of the solution have their proponents and opponents.”

Still, just as Dierkers, Sturman and all of Laurel House’s advocates say they do everything that they do with so many of the victims and survivors of domestic violence they’ve encountered, supported and fought for in mind, state legislators say they’re similarly motivated to create and strengthen domestic violence laws in Pennsylvania.

“Mike and I don’t have to read about it in the newspapers or see it on TV — we can think back to specific victims and specific abusers and think about the effect it had on their lives and all the families,” says Stephens. “You think about the real lives that you touched, and it makes it real easy to stand up and fight for these issues when you keep those people in your mind.”

“It’s not hard, we all believe in it,” says Vereb. “I saw the most gruesome of domestic violence results first-hand in my tenure as police officer. And I feel that victims, when they reach a place like Laurel House, they’re right there on the edge of life and death.”

“We’re not going to be able to stop it all,” he says. “But right when we think we’re tired or politically spent is the exact moment that we gotta stand up and say, ‘Have we done enough for our victims?’”